7 ms·

I'm having this issue a bit with my wife. I want my 9-yr old daughter to go to the playground a couple blocks away on her own; my wife is reluctant. My argume

I'm having this issue a bit with my wife. I want my 9-yr old daughter to go to the playground a couple blocks away on her own; my wife is reluctant. My argument is that it's statistically very safe, especially in our neighborhood, and that we and her older brothers all did similar things. Her argument is that a girl needs to be more cautious than a boy, and that although she knows it's unlikely anything bad would happen, it would destroy us if it did. We're planning to compromise by letting her do it, but only after we get her her first phone.

spywaregorilla 5y ago
I would be much more concerned about some well intentioned rando calling the cops on you because there's a child unattended.
- grahamburger 5y ago
  This really is a great thing about living in Utah with young kids (one of the states mentioned in the article with laws explicitly protecting parents from these randos.) In my neighborhood the street is literally full of neighborhood kids almost every day, ranging from 2-3 years old to teens, out riding bikes and playing games. There's a park a few blocks away that my kids (3yo-10yo) walk or bike to unsupervised. Obviously as a parent you still worry - for me I worry more about someone getting hit by a car than being abducted - but it's nice to know at least that child services isn't going to show up just because the kids are out playing.
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  I live in the Midwest. I am a teacher. My wife is a social worker. I hear this fear about being charged Or having your kids taken by CPS because you let them walk alone to the grocery store or something, but I’ve literally never heard of it happening. I even have known a couple CPS workers in the past. The stuff they deal with day to day is wildly more intense than what people are suggesting here. My instinct is that it’s a straw man, but clue me in. How common could this possibly be?
nikolay 5y ago
Parents today are overprotective (this includes me!) and don't realize that it actually damages their kids. I was 5-years-old when my parents would just drop me off to the kindergarten and then I was on my own pretty much the whole day after kindergarten finishes in the afternoon. I would go to different classes kilometers away, crossing roads, etc. and it was common practice. I don't think kids get injured less today than when I was a kid. Also, my parents would send me to the store to buy them beer or cigarettes - all you needed back then to either bring a handwritten note from your parent or for the salesperson to know you and know your parents - I don't drink, I don't smoke. We always underestimate the power of the forbidden fruit! Leaving kids on their own makes them more responsible and independent. I highly recommend Free-Range Kids [0]! [0]: https://www.freerangekids.com/ https://www.freerangekids.com/
- akomtu 5y ago
  So in essence, the overprotective parents trade their kids' freedom for personal (and egoistical, tbh) peace of mind.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    Which begs the question, why have kids at that point? They're human beings, not instinct driven pets.
    - afarviral 5y ago
      Why have pets? They're not JUST instinct driven beings, either.
    - chairmanwow1 5y ago
      I think the way people view pets is pretty inhumane. It just seems so thoroughly selfish to purchase an animal bred to be provide you joy.
      - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
        I am in the same camp. There was this girl I met on tinder that I always noticed the irony of her rescuing a dog from somewhere only for her to lock it up in a cage for 8-12 hours a day while she is working or partying. It's not right at all.
willcipriano 5y ago
Given what we have learned regarding the catholic church, boy scouts and penn state athletics program. I'd say young boys have just as much to fear if not more. That said I'm with you on her walking to the park.
goldenchrome 5y ago
My mom used to take the bus into the city when she was 8, spend the day wandering around, and come back on her own time. This was in the 70s with no smartphones. If there was an issue, she could use a pay phone. Her own mother sent her out of the house to get some free time for herself. When I was growing up, I did similar things, taking my 5 year old sister on the public bus with me to get to school when I was 10. If I had some pocket change we’d get ice creams from McDonald’s on the way home. It depends on what neighborhood you live in, but the world is very safe today and if you’re on HN I assume you’re in a decent area. I think parents have too much time and energy today to spend worrying about their frankly very competent kids. The smartphone thing is a good idea but I really think it’s best to push your kid out of the nest to discover the world themself, lest you end up with a grown up daughter who’s afraid of the world.
- gambiting 5y ago
  In the 90s I walked to school(two busy streets and one market Square with stalls away) on my own at the age of 7, I was expected to leave the house and lock the door behind me on my own(my parents both left to work by that time), make it back at the end of school and let myself in and wait at home for their return. Nowadays just leaving a 7 year old at home alone would be a crime.
- jbay808 5y ago
  Sounds like your grandmother would be getting letters from a social worker if she were a parent today. https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/07/06/vancouver-bus-dad-kids-court/ https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/07/06/vancouver-bus-dad-ki...
  - goldenchrome 5y ago
    I’d rather fight the battle than cripple my own child so they can fit into a pathetic society.
UncleEntity 5y ago
Even back when us kids were 'free range' there were more restrictions placed on the girls, my older sister couldn't get up to as many shenanigans as I could at the same or younger age -- cultural norms and whatnot.
rhema 5y ago
You might try to get longish distance walkie-talkies. They are cheap and probably go far enough. I let my (similar age) kids free range a block or two, especially if they go together and bring a walkie talkie.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  Why not just give them a real phone?. That way they are never at risk of being out of range. Parental control it so it can't install apps if you are super paranoid.
asciimov 5y ago
> We're planning to compromise by letting her do it, but only after we get her her first phone. Might I suggest looking into one of those cell phone watches for kids. They allow you to lock down who they can send and receive calls/messages from and have gps and geofencing so you can keep an eye on them. It basically allows you to give them the advantages of a phone, without having to give them a phone.
- Nullabillity 5y ago
  The irony in making this suggestion in this thread...
  - asciimov 5y ago
    It's a good compromise for mom. Let kids run free, and give mom the reassurance they can call someone if they need help. I don't like giving cell phones to kids younger than 12 or 13 because childhood should be free of a lot of the technology we use today.
    - yupper32 5y ago
      > I don't like giving cell phones to kids younger than 12 or 13 because childhood should be free of a lot of the technology we use today. The future is technology. You're holding them back, socially and technology skills wise, if you wait until they're 13 to give them a cell phone. I was fixing computers and was generally the house technology expert well before I was 13. To get to that point required unrestricted access to tech and the internet. If I was locked down until 13, I would not be as successful as I am today in tech, if I was in tech at all.
      - colinmhayes 5y ago
        Hard disagree. Children with phones don't socialize face to face with other children. That's pretty much the most important skill taught in elementary school and you're taking it away from them. You can still let your child use computers at home, but they should have to interact face to face in order to socialize. Yes, the future is technology, but not being able to interact with people without anxiety is not a path to happiness, and that's what you get when you give children phones.
mikepurvis 5y ago
My eldest is also a daughter of a similar age. What my partner and I have said is "yes you're old enough to go do things, as long as you're going with friends." She's not old enough to go places alone, or to go places where she'll be supervising her younger sibs. But she's old enough to be in a setting where peers are watching out for each other and know how to find help if needed. I know that's still a walk-back from what previous generations enjoyed, but it's not that different from what we both experienced at this age in the 90s. And in parallel to this, we've put a fair bit into teaching our kids to navigate on foot, use public transportation, and safely ride their bikes on the road— all of it an investment in pre-car/non-car teenage autonomy.
HarryHirsch 5y ago
The bigger risk is getting run over by an inattentive driver, and yet most parents are worrying about pedophiles. How would a phone guard against distracted driving?
handrous 5y ago
We let our very-capable son and his less-capable-but-bright and more-experienced older sister freely wander the neighborhood on bicycles when they were 5.5 and 7, respectively. Worked out fine so far. Varies by neighborhood, though. Our current one's busy-body and kids-only-play-with-parental-escort enough that we had a couple neighbors stop by to warn us that they'd seen our kids several streets over, thinking they'd gotten away from us. Not quite busy-body enough that anyone called the cops (I suspect we were right on the edge of that happening, and maybe just got lucky). Our last neighborhood had wonderful mixed-age "gangs" of kids wandering around playing all the time, and it would have been entirely safe there. That was a much younger neighborhood (in terms of both the ages of the houses and the average age of residents) than this one (not sure whether that's related), and, I suspect, there were some class issues at play (the other had a very high-prole character to it, in Fussellian terms, while this one's 100%, gratingly, middle-class as hell) As for chances of assault, your main worry by a country mile should be cars, not predators. All forms of attacks on kids by strangers are incredibly rare. Leaving your kid in the company of a specific adult or set of adults is far riskier than letting them walk to the park (yet people do that all the time). Shit, statistically siblings or cousins are far "scarier" and worthy of concern, in that regard, than the risk of regular walks to a park 2 blocks away.
- ryukafalz 5y ago
  > your main worry by a country mile should be cars, not predators 100%, and cars are a reasonable worry that we should do something about. There are well known traffic calming measures that we know slow down traffic substantially (speed being one of the greatest causes of pedestrian fatalities) and even in my very walkable city we're largely not using them.
  - clairity 5y ago
    speed doesn’t cause fatalities, or even cause collisions, it increases severity in the case of a collision. collisions cause (pedestrian) fatalities, and distracted driving is the leading cause of collisions.
    - 5y ago
rsync 5y ago
"I'm having this issue a bit with my wife. I want my 9-yr old daughter to go to the playground a couple blocks away on her own; my wife is reluctant." ... "We're planning to compromise by letting her do it, but only after we get her her first phone." I hesitate to enter into child rearing discussions but ... May I suggest a slightly different approach: satisfy your wife by following, secretly, your child at a distance the first few times. All the benefits of independence and self-reliance, etc., for your child - and a gradual, baby steps approach for your wife as she gets comfortable with this routine. May I also suggest that a phone is unnecessary due to the fact that every single other person already has a phone. Further, bad actors will likely assume your daughter has a phone. It's classically selfish behavior but you can piggyback on the (telephone) safety net that everyone else has already constructed. I know from voluminous personal experience that everyone, everywhere, is happy to use their phone to help your child. Just make sure she memorizes your phone numbers :)
- tux1968 5y ago
  > May I suggest a slightly different approach: satisfy your wife by following, secretly, your child Suspect they already trust their child enough to not need to follow her at all. She's capable. The concern is unforeseen events outside the child's control such as irresponsible drivers, bullies, or worse. None of which is any less likely to happen after you stop following the child. They're not likely to ever happen, and the child's independence is probably worth the risk, but there's no way to ever completely eliminate those risks or put your mind completely at ease about it.
  - rsync 5y ago
    I agree with your analysis - but this suggestion is for his wife, not the child. It's a way to become comfortable - in a slow and controlled manner - with expanding the range of the child, etc.
- unanswered 5y ago
  I have to disagree with both points here. Following the child after apparently granting freedom would be a massive breach of trust: bad enough on its own, but potentially very scarring if discovered. Don't add that risk! As for the phone, you're right if you only think of the phone as somehow protecting against stranger danger. But as someone who lives alone with health problems I think of the phone entirely differently: it's a lifeline to all kinds of potential help, from a medical emergency to being locked out of my car or apartment building. And of course not only in that direction; it works the other way too where having my phone means I can be a point of contact for help for others. This is obviously a somewhat new aspect of our society in the past 20 years, and I'm certainly not saying we couldn't get along without it; but I am asking, "why would you want to go back to a time before these universal lifelines?".
ska 5y ago
It’s a conversation being had by parents all the time. The mistake is to think that not letting the kids do things doesn’t have an effect. More realistically you are often balancing a high harm, low risk (sometime tiny, eg abduction) event against a low harm, high risk one. This is inherently difficult, but easier I think when framed this way.
tester89 5y ago
I was against Apple Watch for kids, but honestly if I were in this situation, it seems like a decent compromise.
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  Maybe even just an Air Tag?
aantix 5y ago
Get her a Gizmo pal watch. You can call her. The watch auto-answers, so she can't ignore it. She can call 5 pre-programmed numbers. And you can see her location in an app.
comeonseriously 5y ago
It's the "John Walsh" effect. His son's kidnapping was all over the news and then later he had "America's Most Wanted" and he literally started scaring people from allowing their kids out of their sight. To this day, people still think their kid is going to be abducted if they let them go play. I remember being 9 and riding my bike miles away to the mall and back. Kids can't do that anymore.
tomc1985 5y ago
Stories like this make me so sad. We've turned ourselves into wusses in just 20 years...

spywaregorilla 5y ago

I would be much more concerned about some well intentioned rando calling the cops on you because there's a child unattended.

grahamburger 5y ago
This really is a great thing about living in Utah with young kids (one of the states mentioned in the article with laws explicitly protecting parents from these randos.) In my neighborhood the street is literally full of neighborhood kids almost every day, ranging from 2-3 years old to teens, out riding bikes and playing games. There's a park a few blocks away that my kids (3yo-10yo) walk or bike to unsupervised. Obviously as a parent you still worry - for me I worry more about someone getting hit by a car than being abducted - but it's nice to know at least that child services isn't going to show up just because the kids are out playing.
germinalphrase 5y ago
I live in the Midwest. I am a teacher. My wife is a social worker. I hear this fear about being charged Or having your kids taken by CPS because you let them walk alone to the grocery store or something, but I’ve literally never heard of it happening. I even have known a couple CPS workers in the past. The stuff they deal with day to day is wildly more intense than what people are suggesting here. My instinct is that it’s a straw man, but clue me in. How common could this possibly be?

nikolay 5y ago

Parents today are overprotective (this includes me!) and don't realize that it actually damages their kids. I was 5-years-old when my parents would just drop me off to the kindergarten and then I was on my own pretty much the whole day after kindergarten finishes in the afternoon. I would go to different classes kilometers away, crossing roads, etc. and it was common practice. I don't think kids get injured less today than when I was a kid. Also, my parents would send me to the store to buy them beer or cigarettes - all you needed back then to either bring a handwritten note from your parent or for the salesperson to know you and know your parents - I don't drink, I don't smoke. We always underestimate the power of the forbidden fruit! Leaving kids on their own makes them more responsible and independent. I highly recommend Free-Range Kids [0]! [0]: https://www.freerangekids.com/ https://www.freerangekids.com/

akomtu 5y ago
So in essence, the overprotective parents trade their kids' freedom for personal (and egoistical, tbh) peace of mind.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  Which begs the question, why have kids at that point? They're human beings, not instinct driven pets.
  - afarviral 5y ago
    Why have pets? They're not JUST instinct driven beings, either.
  - chairmanwow1 5y ago
    I think the way people view pets is pretty inhumane. It just seems so thoroughly selfish to purchase an animal bred to be provide you joy.
    - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
      I am in the same camp. There was this girl I met on tinder that I always noticed the irony of her rescuing a dog from somewhere only for her to lock it up in a cage for 8-12 hours a day while she is working or partying. It's not right at all.

willcipriano 5y ago

Given what we have learned regarding the catholic church, boy scouts and penn state athletics program. I'd say young boys have just as much to fear if not more. That said I'm with you on her walking to the park.

goldenchrome 5y ago

My mom used to take the bus into the city when she was 8, spend the day wandering around, and come back on her own time. This was in the 70s with no smartphones. If there was an issue, she could use a pay phone. Her own mother sent her out of the house to get some free time for herself. When I was growing up, I did similar things, taking my 5 year old sister on the public bus with me to get to school when I was 10. If I had some pocket change we’d get ice creams from McDonald’s on the way home. It depends on what neighborhood you live in, but the world is very safe today and if you’re on HN I assume you’re in a decent area. I think parents have too much time and energy today to spend worrying about their frankly very competent kids. The smartphone thing is a good idea but I really think it’s best to push your kid out of the nest to discover the world themself, lest you end up with a grown up daughter who’s afraid of the world.

gambiting 5y ago
In the 90s I walked to school(two busy streets and one market Square with stalls away) on my own at the age of 7, I was expected to leave the house and lock the door behind me on my own(my parents both left to work by that time), make it back at the end of school and let myself in and wait at home for their return. Nowadays just leaving a 7 year old at home alone would be a crime.
jbay808 5y ago
Sounds like your grandmother would be getting letters from a social worker if she were a parent today. https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/07/06/vancouver-bus-dad-kids-court/ https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/07/06/vancouver-bus-dad-ki...
- goldenchrome 5y ago
  I’d rather fight the battle than cripple my own child so they can fit into a pathetic society.

UncleEntity 5y ago

Even back when us kids were 'free range' there were more restrictions placed on the girls, my older sister couldn't get up to as many shenanigans as I could at the same or younger age -- cultural norms and whatnot.

rhema 5y ago

You might try to get longish distance walkie-talkies. They are cheap and probably go far enough. I let my (similar age) kids free range a block or two, especially if they go together and bring a walkie talkie.

SilverRed 5y ago
Why not just give them a real phone?. That way they are never at risk of being out of range. Parental control it so it can't install apps if you are super paranoid.

asciimov 5y ago

> We're planning to compromise by letting her do it, but only after we get her her first phone. Might I suggest looking into one of those cell phone watches for kids. They allow you to lock down who they can send and receive calls/messages from and have gps and geofencing so you can keep an eye on them. It basically allows you to give them the advantages of a phone, without having to give them a phone.

Nullabillity 5y ago
The irony in making this suggestion in this thread...
- asciimov 5y ago
  It's a good compromise for mom. Let kids run free, and give mom the reassurance they can call someone if they need help. I don't like giving cell phones to kids younger than 12 or 13 because childhood should be free of a lot of the technology we use today.
  - yupper32 5y ago
    > I don't like giving cell phones to kids younger than 12 or 13 because childhood should be free of a lot of the technology we use today. The future is technology. You're holding them back, socially and technology skills wise, if you wait until they're 13 to give them a cell phone. I was fixing computers and was generally the house technology expert well before I was 13. To get to that point required unrestricted access to tech and the internet. If I was locked down until 13, I would not be as successful as I am today in tech, if I was in tech at all.
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      Hard disagree. Children with phones don't socialize face to face with other children. That's pretty much the most important skill taught in elementary school and you're taking it away from them. You can still let your child use computers at home, but they should have to interact face to face in order to socialize. Yes, the future is technology, but not being able to interact with people without anxiety is not a path to happiness, and that's what you get when you give children phones.

mikepurvis 5y ago

My eldest is also a daughter of a similar age. What my partner and I have said is "yes you're old enough to go do things, as long as you're going with friends." She's not old enough to go places alone, or to go places where she'll be supervising her younger sibs. But she's old enough to be in a setting where peers are watching out for each other and know how to find help if needed. I know that's still a walk-back from what previous generations enjoyed, but it's not that different from what we both experienced at this age in the 90s. And in parallel to this, we've put a fair bit into teaching our kids to navigate on foot, use public transportation, and safely ride their bikes on the road— all of it an investment in pre-car/non-car teenage autonomy.

HarryHirsch 5y ago

The bigger risk is getting run over by an inattentive driver, and yet most parents are worrying about pedophiles. How would a phone guard against distracted driving?

handrous 5y ago

We let our very-capable son and his less-capable-but-bright and more-experienced older sister freely wander the neighborhood on bicycles when they were 5.5 and 7, respectively. Worked out fine so far. Varies by neighborhood, though. Our current one's busy-body and kids-only-play-with-parental-escort enough that we had a couple neighbors stop by to warn us that they'd seen our kids several streets over, thinking they'd gotten away from us. Not quite busy-body enough that anyone called the cops (I suspect we were right on the edge of that happening, and maybe just got lucky). Our last neighborhood had wonderful mixed-age "gangs" of kids wandering around playing all the time, and it would have been entirely safe there. That was a much younger neighborhood (in terms of both the ages of the houses and the average age of residents) than this one (not sure whether that's related), and, I suspect, there were some class issues at play (the other had a very high-prole character to it, in Fussellian terms, while this one's 100%, gratingly, middle-class as hell) As for chances of assault, your main worry by a country mile should be cars, not predators. All forms of attacks on kids by strangers are incredibly rare. Leaving your kid in the company of a specific adult or set of adults is far riskier than letting them walk to the park (yet people do that all the time). Shit, statistically siblings or cousins are far "scarier" and worthy of concern, in that regard, than the risk of regular walks to a park 2 blocks away.

ryukafalz 5y ago
> your main worry by a country mile should be cars, not predators 100%, and cars are a reasonable worry that we should do something about. There are well known traffic calming measures that we know slow down traffic substantially (speed being one of the greatest causes of pedestrian fatalities) and even in my very walkable city we're largely not using them.
- clairity 5y ago
  speed doesn’t cause fatalities, or even cause collisions, it increases severity in the case of a collision. collisions cause (pedestrian) fatalities, and distracted driving is the leading cause of collisions.
  - 5y ago

rsync 5y ago

"I'm having this issue a bit with my wife. I want my 9-yr old daughter to go to the playground a couple blocks away on her own; my wife is reluctant." ... "We're planning to compromise by letting her do it, but only after we get her her first phone." I hesitate to enter into child rearing discussions but ... May I suggest a slightly different approach: satisfy your wife by following, secretly, your child at a distance the first few times. All the benefits of independence and self-reliance, etc., for your child - and a gradual, baby steps approach for your wife as she gets comfortable with this routine. May I also suggest that a phone is unnecessary due to the fact that every single other person already has a phone. Further, bad actors will likely assume your daughter has a phone. It's classically selfish behavior but you can piggyback on the (telephone) safety net that everyone else has already constructed. I know from voluminous personal experience that everyone, everywhere, is happy to use their phone to help your child. Just make sure she memorizes your phone numbers :)

tux1968 5y ago
> May I suggest a slightly different approach: satisfy your wife by following, secretly, your child Suspect they already trust their child enough to not need to follow her at all. She's capable. The concern is unforeseen events outside the child's control such as irresponsible drivers, bullies, or worse. None of which is any less likely to happen after you stop following the child. They're not likely to ever happen, and the child's independence is probably worth the risk, but there's no way to ever completely eliminate those risks or put your mind completely at ease about it.
- rsync 5y ago
  I agree with your analysis - but this suggestion is for his wife, not the child. It's a way to become comfortable - in a slow and controlled manner - with expanding the range of the child, etc.
unanswered 5y ago
I have to disagree with both points here. Following the child after apparently granting freedom would be a massive breach of trust: bad enough on its own, but potentially very scarring if discovered. Don't add that risk! As for the phone, you're right if you only think of the phone as somehow protecting against stranger danger. But as someone who lives alone with health problems I think of the phone entirely differently: it's a lifeline to all kinds of potential help, from a medical emergency to being locked out of my car or apartment building. And of course not only in that direction; it works the other way too where having my phone means I can be a point of contact for help for others. This is obviously a somewhat new aspect of our society in the past 20 years, and I'm certainly not saying we couldn't get along without it; but I am asking, "why would you want to go back to a time before these universal lifelines?".

ska 5y ago

It’s a conversation being had by parents all the time. The mistake is to think that not letting the kids do things doesn’t have an effect. More realistically you are often balancing a high harm, low risk (sometime tiny, eg abduction) event against a low harm, high risk one. This is inherently difficult, but easier I think when framed this way.

tester89 5y ago

I was against Apple Watch for kids, but honestly if I were in this situation, it seems like a decent compromise.

jonny_eh 5y ago
Maybe even just an Air Tag?

aantix 5y ago

Get her a Gizmo pal watch. You can call her. The watch auto-answers, so she can't ignore it. She can call 5 pre-programmed numbers. And you can see her location in an app.

comeonseriously 5y ago

It's the "John Walsh" effect. His son's kidnapping was all over the news and then later he had "America's Most Wanted" and he literally started scaring people from allowing their kids out of their sight. To this day, people still think their kid is going to be abducted if they let them go play. I remember being 9 and riding my bike miles away to the mall and back. Kids can't do that anymore.

tomc1985 5y ago

Stories like this make me so sad. We've turned ourselves into wusses in just 20 years...